Sepia Prison
by TheMeanderer
Summary: A one-shot examining the life of the pilot who flies the plane of Vlambeer's game, LUFTRAUSERS. Rated T because being trapped anywhere is unpleasant at best, and hellish at the worst.


A/N: Tell me if it's amazing. Tell me if it's terrible. Tell me if it could be something greater. Whatever you feel about it, tell me why, and how I can do better.

**LUFTRAUSERS remains the sole property of Vlambeer and Devolver Digital. I'm just riffing on a idea I got while playing it. If you haven't played it, do check out at the least the flash demo, if not the actual game.**

* * *

The air in the cockpit is heavy and cloying, damp with the tense sweat of the pilot, who fiercely operates the controls of the plane. Light from the flashes of gunfire and explosions further illuminate the cockpit in spite of the shining sun, and their light dances across the pilot, highlighting a face set with grim determination.

"I will not die this day. I will bring enemy to their knees. I will survive," he thinks to himself again. The mantra continues to reverberate in his brain, and he pushes himself to shoot down one more enemy, evade one more bullet as his plane dances across the sepia sky.

A quick glance at the plane's radar reveals that his enemies are above him, and that the skies beneath are clear. He quickly cuts the engine, and aims the plane's noise toward the shining sea below.

"How peaceful this sea seems compared to everything else above it" he thinks before gunning the engine and clenching his stomach. His plane begins its dive, and the angry swarm of foes behind him is briefly caught off guard by the sudden change in direction. The pilot takes a quick breath in this brief reprieve, but soon, his pursuers dive as well, their planes gracefully arcing through the sky. Soon enough, their fire is upon him once again. Sweat which would normally drip off the pilot's brow is suspended by the sudden downward acceleration, almost suspended in front of his face.

"Yet even as it shines, it is still a damn shade of brown" he thinks, tweaking the plane to avoid the incoming machine gun fire. The shots whiz past the wings, almost skimming the plane's surface. Suddenly the plane shakes violently.

He's been hit. He can feel a storm of wind blowing into the bottom of the cockpit as the machines of the strange airplane begin to repair the hole. Barely seconds after impact, the hole is sealed and the plane is complete again.

"Truly this is a strange and wonderful ship," the pilot muses, "without its magic, I would have fallen before this battle had barely begun."

His dive continues, bullets and missiles flying past, temporarily putting craters the strangely mirror like water surface. If the pilot had a moment to consider this, he would have wondered how unnatural the mirror surface of the water was. There were no waves, and the waves of the impacting shots faded quickly. Unfortunately, more pressing matters are at hand.

Survival.

The ocean finally begins to fill his whole view, and the pilot's brow furrows. He cuts his engine again, and flips the plane to vertical again, unleashing his own hail of machine gun fire while re-engaging his engine. Explosions rumble around him as he flies through the pursuing swarm, and he sighs with relief as he hears the splashes and explosions of planes unable to pull up from the unforgiving ocean surface in time. Few of his assailants remain after his trick, and he prepares himself to take on the remaining forces.

But his preparations are interrupted by alarms in the cockpit, as the radar fills with one massive object.

A blimp.

"That… thing! It's filling up the entire radar!" His radio shouts.

He swears. This was the last thing he wished to encounter, even though he always does. The innumerable guns of the blimp train on him, and he immediately begins maneuvering to evade their inevitable roar. His determination begins to waver as the hopelessness of this battle begins to weigh on him.

"Impossible," he whispers to his machine, "how can any one person survive to escape this?"

Yet still, he guides his nose toward the behemoth. He will go down fighting. His finger pulls the trigger and his plane's bullets race toward the blimp, reaching ever closer to its gunmetal underbelly. It too, is a strange tan shade, the ship permanently colored as if in an old picture.

Before his bullets strike the bizarre surface however, his attention is suddenly stolen away by a voice.

Or is it voices?

So delicate the sound is, yet so present in his mind. The single voice has already melded into a choir, building in strength, before he could even fully comprehend it.

"Am I about to die?" He wonders, but then his eyes are drawn to something more impossible than the gigantic blimp.

A portal in the sky. Contrasting the muted browns of the world around him, he sees an inky midnight punctuated by numerous stars. He stares into that darkness, his eyes drinking in the sight, thirsty for color. So long it been since he saw shades beyond sepia, and never has he seen such a glorious wonder as this.

"Have those stars always been behind some window of this world?" He asks himself. He feels it drawing him, and his plane's nose somehow aligns itself with the window in the sky. His entire body relaxes, as the music continues to fill his mind. The constant rumble of his guns has stopped, and it seems he is at a true peace.

Unfortunately, this peace is only in his head. His enemies take the chance to attack the pilot while distracted. As he begins to near the portal, his plane begins to shake, the machines of the plane working to keep its awestruck pilot and itself alive for a second longer. The weapons of his enemies continue to pour into the plane, and its alarms begin to blare, screaming for the pilot to come to his senses. Alas, the song of the stars has captivated him; he is deaf to the sound of his plane and blind to its flashing lights. He hears only the song of the stars, and sees only the infinite darkness of the window in the sky.

His last thought is empty as the plane ruptures, exploding into a thousand pieces, his body engulfed in flame and shrapnel.

* * *

And he wakes once again.

His eyes snap open, the battle in his mind's eye fading, replaced by the sight of his room. As he pulls himself up, and out of the bed, the song that had so captured him has already faded to a whisper.

But he does not forget it as he surveys his room and his head clears. A bed. A closet and single hanger for his flight suit. A light switch. A door. All dull and oppressive tan shades. Not even the shadows escape, their normal blackness somehow painted with the color of mud.

He is beyond wondering how he got here, or why he continues to die and wake up in the same bed. Or even why the color palette of this world is so limited. He only asks: "How do I leave this place? When will I see something real again?"

He sighs, stands, and walks over to his flight suit, absently humming the song of the stars, botched as his rendition is, the melody soothes his agitation over his imprisonment in this world.

"Perhaps there is hope yet. The portal in the sky is a sign of things to come perhaps?" He muses.

The flight suit is undamaged and fits the same as each one before it; In fact, it seems brand new. No stains of sweat, the smell of fear and desperation eliminated. It is almost as if he never wore it in the first place.

"Perhaps I've never worn it after all, and this is all but a dream. Hm?" he asks the walls. Their silence gives no answer to his existential musings.

"More like a nightmare" he retorts. Still, they sit silent.

Properly dressed, he leaves his room, but immediately encounters a stern face.

The CO, with one glass eye staring blankly in the distance, face lined with the struggles of this unnamed war, looms over him. The pilot wonders what this man must have experienced to have a face so aged, yet must still command a secret mission such as his. Who gives an entire lifetime for such a cause? Is he the jailer? Or is he too trapped here? His thoughts distract him, and he salutes casually.

It is too casual for this man.

"GET YOURSELF IN SHAPE PILOT!" He barks, "Today you fly to our victory! Today it ends! You must give everything you are and MORE on this day."

"Yes, sir! It ends today sir!" The pilot shouts as he snaps to attention. He has done all of this before, more times than he can count, yet still, every time, the CO tells him a variant of the same thing.

"Today is the last day. Success will end the war."

He bites his tongue when he thinks to enquire once again who it is he fights or why. Or to comment that's what he's been told since he first woke up in this trap of a world. The last time he did that, the CO shot him for being a traitor and he woke up again. He dares not even mention the song or the portal in the sky for fear of retaliation.

"That's more like it pilot. Get yourself to the briefing room" the commander growls.

The pilot releases his salute, and confidently strides into the briefing room across the hall.

An older woman, face equally as stern as the CO's, stares wordlessly at the pilot. The chief, whose official role in the hierarchy of the submarine remains a mystery beyond her duty to brief him. As with everything, every part of her is some shade of brown.

"Late as usual pilot," she remarks, "will you ever be on time?"

He once literally sprinted into the briefing room, fully dressed. Didn't even talk to the CO. She said the exact same thing. At least Sisyphus didn't have to deal with other people demanding his time.

"Apologies sir! I was preparing myself." He says, saluting.

"Sit pilot. The scientist and I will brief you on today's battle."

The pilot sits, keeping his gaze focused, in spite of a speech he has heard a thousand times before. At this point, he thinks he has it memorized. First, a man in thick, circular sunglasses comes in to brief him on the plane. The only name he's gotten is "The scientist," though the pilot questions whether or not this man actually knows any science. Either way, he is already intimately familiar with the details this man has to give.

"Remember pilot! Your eagerness to destroy your foes may very well be your downfall! Stop shooting to allow your ship to repair itself." The scientist pointedly says.

As the plane details are elaborated, turning speeds of the various chasses, power of the various weapons, thrust of the engines, the pilot studies the scientist's face. It seems eager and earnest. Excited to prove that his work will succeed. Too eager almost, considering that this man has created a machine that only serves to kill. How does this man enjoy speaking about this tedious topic time and again? Then again, maybe he isn't even a person at this point?

The pilot clears the thought from his head as the woman steps up to begin the second half of the briefing. Appearing too distracted has also gotten him shot before takeoff.

The second half reviews the countless foes he is about to face. Airplanes, gunboats, battleships, submarines, and even fighter jets are named. Details about their weapons, their fighting patterns, everything seems so well known. Yet what is not known is even the existence of the blimp. Every time it appears, the scientist comes on the radio, mid-mission:

"That… thing! It's filling up the entire radar!"

Every time he survives and it appears, it has shot him down. Yet every time he sits in the briefing, the crew are none the wiser to its existence.

"Is it all a game?" He muses internally.

Suddenly, the CO enters the meeting.

The pilot snaps to attention, less out of respect for the man, and more out of surprise. This has never happened before.

"Chief," the CO interrupts, "It's happening."

"S-F-M-T?" she asks.

"SFMT."

The pilot's eyes dart back and forth between the two officers, trying to crack the code of the four letters they spoke. He has no success, starting think that either this really is some kind of game.

"Sir. What does that mean?" he asks aloud.

"They know you're coming, pilot." The CO says grimly. "They'll be waiting for you. Get to your plane. Now."

"This is not normal," he thinks to himself as he runs to the hanger. The scientist, surprisingly, is keeping pace with him.

"You have no time to pick your armament! We'll have to launch whatever is ready!"

As the two of them reach the hanger, the pilot sees what is waiting for him to fly.

A giant booster attached to the back of normally tiny frame of his plane, and a giant cannon attached to the front.

"We call it the Mechrauser." The scientist says, "As you likely already know, it'll be a fast plane, but your fire rate will be slow, and you won't be able to repair while the cannon reloads. Aim carefully!"

The scientist salutes the pilot as he climbs into the cockpit of the new plane.

"Is this the end?" he asks the plane.

No reply but the sound of the engine starting.

The ceiling opens to reveal the sepia sky once more, already filled with enemy planes, already flying toward the open hatch.

"Shit. LAUNCH!" The pilot shouts with urgency.

The catapult his plane was sitting on engages, and throws the machine up into the air. A hail of fire immediately flies toward him, and he guns the engine to evade. He quickly flips his plane, and squeezes off a single massive shot toward the coming swarm.

It misses.

"You've got to be kidding me!" The pilot screams, as even more bullets fly toward him, peppering his airplane. He guns the engine once again to escape, but the plane isn't fixing itself. The cockpit seems to be falling apart beneath his feet, yet still keeping him trapped in the screaming metal trap.

"No no no no NO!" Already the pilot's hands are trembling. "This is too much!"

As if listening to the pilot, the plane suddenly begins to repair itself, and he guides the plane toward emptier spaces.

"Right" he pants, catching his breath, "slow reload."

Before he's even caught his breath however, alarms begin blaring.

"That… thing! It's filling up the entire radar!" he radio squawks.

The pilot swears, and cranes his neck upward to the flying fortress descending upon the aerial battlefield. Then he sees it. He hears it.

The portal the stars has appeared as well. It's beauty and majesty untarnished by his previous death.

The song is intoxicating, but the pilot knows he needs to be paying attention. His face clenches, and he grits his teeth as he starts flying toward the hole in the sky, already knowing that he won't bother trying to fight anymore. He dodges and weaves, dancing in between missiles and cannon fire, somehow managing near miss after near miss. This time he will escape. This time, he won't wake up in that prison cell of a room.

The portal gets closer. His plane gets hit. Still he flies, evading even more vigorously. But his efforts are failing, as more and more damage accumulates. His engine is on fire, and the fuselage of the plane is more air than metal. But the portal is so close. The song is louder than the alarms, and his focus is starting to slip.

Then he sees it.

A round button marked "ESC" on his dashboard. Also something that has never been there before.

The marking is scribbled in marker above the button, and he hesitates at the fear of it failing. The song swells.

He slams it down, his hand throbbing with the force of the impact.

The plane suddenly angles downward of its own accord, pointing his seat at the portal. A mask comes out of the chair, and latches itself on his face, as the canopy of the cockpit bursts off, and suddenly the pilot is thrown into a rush of air. The plane takes a few more hits, and explodes in shades of brown behind him, propelling his little seat across the boundary of the starry sky.

The bullets of his enemies look as if they're going to carry through the portal after him, but they disappear, as if the portal were not even there.

The song seems to have faded into the background, and his eyes are filled with the light of thousands of worlds before him. The space between is a deep black and he sees brightly shining nebulas, a rainbow of colors slowly swirling far away from him. None of these colors are tainted with those tan shades, except the ones that are supposed to be tan.

He sighs in content, watching the peaceful scene around him, refreshing his eyes with the colors of this space between.

He rests, the exhaustion of his thousands of battles finally catching up to him.

* * *

He wakes up in a bed, and stiffens with panic.

"Don't tell me I'm back in that hell hole" he starts, but then he sees:

But the walls are a light green. And the sheets are cream colored. There is a window, and it reveals the most calming thing of all:

A blue sky.


End file.
